


May We Meet Again

by macintosh16



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 2199 days is a lot, F/M, Minor Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Post Praimfaya, Post-Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-11-14 04:59:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11200938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macintosh16/pseuds/macintosh16
Summary: 2199 days is a long time for someone to spend alone. These are a few of her messages to the Ark over her time on the ground.





	1. Twenty Four

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! First fic I've written in years and first on this site or for this fandom, but I think that after that finale, it might be time to try again. Hope you like it! :)

"Hi Bellamy."

Clarke put down the receiver and waited. It was uncomfortable, the static filling the room as she waited for a reply. It sounded almost foreign. Twenty-four days had passed since Praimfaya. Twenty-four days filled with silence and stillness Clarke had yet to experience on Earth. The first three or so were hellish, having woken up on the floor of the lab in agonizing pain after an unknown number of hours had passed. She tried to treat the radiation as best she could, not knowing if the Nightblood solution would have taken, before finally she began to recover. Then the worst part hit. The isolation. The lack of food. Of water. Clarke looked down at the receiver before picking it up again.

"I know it’s surprising but…" Clarke inhaled deeply "I’m alive." She worried her lip between her teeth, hoping that maybe he’d respond. She continued after a minute.

"I’m really hoping that you aren’t responding because you’re too busy to be working with the radio staying alive and not because-" Her voice cracked. "Because I failed you." She felt a tear escaping and quickly wiped it away.

 _R"_ emember how I responded when you called from Mount Weather? Yeah, I wish you’d return the favor right about now." She took a deep breath.

"I hope you all are getting along up there. I can imagine it now; Monty and Raven are probably deep in repairs to the ship. Getting the farm running and all. Murphy is probably driving you up a wall and Harper’s trying to make sure Monty’s sane after… Jasper." Clarke took a deep breath wiping her eyes. "You and Monty and Murphy... you had to have made it back. You had to. I’d know if you were gone. You can’t be no- you aren’t."

Clarke put down the receiver. She laid back against the cold floor of the lab, wondering if she even believed that he was alive. Was the ache in her chest due to loneliness or the loss of her partner. She thought on that for a moment. That was all they were technically. Partners. She now had spent equal time with him and without him on Earth, between her stupid quest to find her after Mount Weather, and her time in Polis with Lexa. Clarke stared up at the ceiling of the lab, imagining it were the sky instead of part of a bunker. She knew that she wouldn’t change the time that she spent with Lexa or finding out who she was after the mountain for anything, as these experiences were important to forming who she was, but maybe, just maybe if she had one more day with Bellamy she would have told him.

She sat quickly back up, not allowing that train of thought to continue. She picked up the receiver again.

"Raven would be proud of me. I got the radio working all by myself after 24 days. And that’s before her, no less. I’ve been planning a lot, to keep myself sane I guess. So, I think, if it’s still standing, I might try to go to the house. There might be more food there, and right now with strict rationing, I might have enough food to last for another week. Thank you, Bellamy, for leaving me a few packs of food. I knew it had to be you. You always had hope about me making it. I’m going to have to fix my suit. I cracked the entire mask, but don’t worry. I’m fine now. The Nightblood solution worked _."_

Clarke took a deep breath. "I don’t blame you for leaving me here. I know you probably didn’t get my message when I radioed you at the tower, but I wanted you to go. The others and you, they wouldn’t have survived here, and I wanted- I want you all to live because I care about you all. I hope you’re listening, Bellamy. That you’re up in the Ark somewhere maybe barking orders at Raven trying to get her to fix your end or something like that." Clarke closed her eyes, smiling, trying to imagine their interactions. She turned her head and the shattered helmet caught her eye.

She sighed and then picked up the receiver again. "Bellamy I’m going to let you go. You probably have to keep our friends alive and I have to keep myself alive so I can see you. 1801 more days. May we meet again."


	2. One Hundred and Eighty-four

All in all, ALIE's mansion itself was not a total loss. 

Priamfaya had done more damage to the buildings than Clarke had ever anticipated. She had initially ventured out of the lab almost six months prior after repairing the crack to her helmet , taking the first week to clear a large enough crawl space for her to venture out into the open. So, when she found the once grandiose mansion in shambles, she was pleasantly surprised to find that, even with the damage, one of the smaller living spaces on the corner was not destroyed beyond repair. Now, after a month of repairs, she finally moved all of her remaining materials into a relatively comfortable place to ride out the next few months as the Earth began to heal itself. 

Clarke brought the final box of supplies from the lab in through the shoddily repaired door and closed it before taking off her helmet for the first time in days, having spent the better part of the last month and a half transporting most of the life support systems to the house.  She gingerly placed it on a dresser, glad that her MacGuiver-ed repair had lasted as long as it had, but cognizant of the fact that it could revert to its previous state at any point. She returned to the box, unpacking the last few rations and bottles of water, a blanket, before finally settling on the radio. 

"Hi Bellamy. Today marks 184 days since Priamfaya."Since I have heard another human voice, she thought to herself.  "I thought that I might share some good news, for once. I finally finished moving everything from the lab to the house, so I am finally above ground."She paused for a moment, waiting for a response that would never come. 

Clarke had started to imagine just what he would say if he was listening: _Good job, Princess, though if it had been me surviving there, I'd have finished the repairs in half the time it took you._

She scoffed. "Raven would've had this done in a month. God she used to make this look so easy." 

Clarke sat for a moment listening to the static. 

"You know, if you had told me that I was going to be able to move above ground this early after that first day I made it out of the lab, I would've told you to go float yourself."

_No you wouldn't have._

"Or at least to share whatever Monty made you with me. I needed it more than you anyways." 

The first day out of the bunker, seeing the still orange sky, the charred trunks of pine trees, the only signs of life remaining, protruding from the barren ground, and the ash and radioactive fallout blanketing the Earth like snow that she had read about on the Ark, she thought all hope was lost. It took her a week before she could even set food outside again, not for fault of the radiation, but rather for the survival of the small shreds of hope for other life to still exist. But never the less, after a dream of a conversation with one particular life partner after the finalization of a list that hopefully had never been implemented, she determined that since she was still alive and kicking and somewhere she was sure that Bellamy was too, she had to at least see it for herself.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do now, Bellamy. I spent almost half of this past year trying to figure out how I could repair this place, and now my biggest project is done.”

_You’ll find something to do, Clarke._  

“You know, before the dropship came down I spent awhile in solitary. They thought that I would tell the others about the oxygen problem and didn’t want me in general population I guess, rightfully so. But you’d think that I would be better at being alone after that experience. Maybe its everything that happened after, with the 100 and the mountain, the grounders, Lexa, Finn,” She hesitated for a moment, “with you, I just got used to having the support and without it I’m just… what’s the word… ungrounded?”

She could imagine his face now, realizing her choice of words. His eyes lighting up in laughter. Bellamy hardly ever smiled, let alone laughed, but whenever Clarke caught him in the act, she couldn’t contain herself from joining in. Even the memory of it brought a smile to her face.

_Great word choice, Princess._

She felt her mood dampening, listening to the static.

“I miss you, Bellamy. I know I say that almost every day, but I really do. I’m managing here alone, but I’m surviving, not living. Who said that, the first time I mean. It was Jasper, wasn’t it?”

She thought for a moment about her dead friend, but quickly shifted focus away from the painful memory of their last few months of interactions.

“How is Monty? I hope that he’s allowing himself some time to breathe and grieve. I know you’re taking care of them. You are too paternal to not be in the Dad role. God, I hope you go easy on your kids one day, otherwise they’re gonna have a very sympathetic Aunt to run away to. I hope you took time to grieve, too. You deserve it. We all lost so much, over these last few months.”

She sat in silence for a little bit, clutching the receiver to her chest.

“I hope you can hear me so you know that you didn’t lose me too. I don’t think that I could handle imagining you grieving for me. I’m alive, Bell. I’m here, and I wish you’d tell me the same.”

Clarke sat down in a large chair. There were about three salvageable rooms in the house, that she had found so far: this study, a small pantry in the basement, and a guest bedroom, more representative of a servant’s quarters than anything else. She was excited to find the bed, though, no matter its condition, but her biggest find had been the pantry, whose contents had apparently eluded even Murphy and Emori. Clarke picked up the receiver again.

“Bellamy? Do you know what I just realized? A year ago today we left the Ark. I don’t know if you and the others came up for a name for today, or if you want to celebrate it, but if you hear this, have a drink for me? If I had anything, I’d join you. You can share something in four and a half years if you want.”

Clarke closed her eyes, exhaustion finally hitting her after the rather physically demanding week that she had had, making at least three trips between the lab and house per day moving her supplies.

“I’m going to let you go, Bellamy. Tell the others that I said hi and that I’m doing alright. May we meet again.”

_We will, Clarke._


	3. Two Hundred and Thirty-Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clarke is super depressed in this chapter, so TW for Clarke losing hope.

"Hi Bellamy."

Clarke said, her voice dragging out the end of his name. It sounded foreign in the silence of the dark house. The sun had sunken beneath the red clouds earlier that day, but Clarke hardly noticed, any energy that she would have had to get up being spent trying to keep herself sane. Prior to her solitude, keeping the guilt and grief stemming from the decisions and losses of the past year at bay was difficult enough. She had thought after Mount Weather, being with the others would send her over the edge, but after only a few weeks alone she couldn't stand not reaching out to someone, so she dyed her hair and found Niylah. Now there was no one for her to reach out to, to hold her when she felt her demons overtaking her. Except Bellamy. _But even that wasn't real. He's not even ali-_ No. She wouldn't let herself continue that thought. She remembered an earlier conversation:  _You still have hope? Are we still breathing?_

She was losing his voice now. Maybe it was the bottle of Whiskey that she had found while scavenging the house and finished to keep the thoughts at bay, or maybe it was just fading from her memory along with the others. 

"Bellamy? I'm sorry I didn't call you earlier. I was busy trying to" She paused for a minute, her drunken brain trying to find the right word. "Trying to breathe again, I mean get the energy to exist. I mean-" She cuts herself off taking a deep breath. There was a reason she hadn't been drunk since the Mountain. She remembered the call of the bottle from the moment she reached camp.  _Let's get a drink,_ he had said. She saw the others, their pain, the accusatory glare from Jasper, Raven and her Mother on stretchers, both not moving. She saw the bottle of moonshine that Monty appeared to be passing around to the survivors, and remembered how easy it would be to escape this, to forget. She shook her head.  _Have one for me_. 

It was too late now, she was alone. Completely and utterly alone, and there was no distractions from the pain she caused, the blood dripping from her hands. She couldn't run like she used to, not for months, so she ran a different way. With her mind like this it was almost as if the numbness spread through her limbs to her soul, making her no longer the sole survivor. "Things are different now, Bellamy. I can't escape them, the things I've done." She closed her eyes, wishing to find the numb place again. It was elusive, even now. 

"I see their faces when I try to sleep, or at least I used to. Now I see all of you all the time. I close my eyes and it's Maya. I can feel her hair against my cheek when held a knife to her throat. I can still see Jasper holding her when I- when we-" Clarke's voice broke. "We were supposed to be together, Bellamy. We did it together. All our friends, all the children and the innocents. I was supposed to bear it so they didn't have to, but why did it have to be me? Why couldn't I have been in Maya's shoes; why couldn't my fight have been over?" She took a shaky breath wiping a tear that had escaped. 

"I can't recall their voices, Bellamy. Jasper, Finn, Lexa, Lincoln, Wells. I can't remember what they sounded like. Even you and Raven and Octavia and Mom are getting harder to imagine. I thought it would've taken longer. I don't even know if you can hear me. I think somedays I just talk to you so I can hear a human voice again." She took a deep breath. "I don't know what I'm gonna do when I lose your faces. What if when you come back and we open the bunker I don't recognize them, if I don't recognize you." Her voice quiets. "What if I forget the ones who we lost."

Clarke closed her eyes, letting herself fall back against her makeshift bed. She hugged the input to her chest and inhaled deeply. She hadn't had anything to drink today. Or really done anything other than fumble around for the bottle of whiskey and the receiver to call Bellamy. 

"Can't you just respond, Bellamy? Or better yet, show up at the door right now with Nightblood in your veins and make this all go away?"  _It has to come from you, Clarke._ She scoffed at the imagined reply. 

"I know it has to come from me, I just want a little inspiration, a reason or something. Just anything." She let her head loll to the side, not caring if the receiver picked up her final comment or not. 

"I don't know how much longer I can make it alone, Bellamy. I should've died in Praimfaya. I should've died. If you're alive up there, could you just let me know?" She put the microphone down then rested her head on top of her hands. "Please, Bell." She said to herself before pressing the microphone again. "May we meet again Bellamy, in this world or whatever comes after." 


	4. Two-Hundred and Fifty

"Bellamy" Clarke at the window looking over her shoulder at the sleeping girl on the couch. 

"I'm sorry I haven't really been able to talk for the past few days but some things happened and I just..." Clarke looked over to the sleeping form before moving to the other room.

"I found a girl, Bellamy. I don't know her name yet, but I think she's five or six, I'm not sure. I don't know how she got here, how she made it this long on her own but I was trying to find food this morning during a break in the storms and there she was, laying on the beach. She wasn't really moving and I thought that maybe she was just... you know, but when I got closer I saw her chest rising and I just grabbed her and ran back to the house with her. By the time we got back to the house, the storms were so bad that even if I scare her once she wakes up, she'll be stuck here with me for a while. But anyways"  Clarke closed the door behind her, letting her voice rise a bit above a whisper for the first time.

"She is so thin, Bellamy. I think that she was so close to being gone when I found her. I basically had to force water down her throat and a little bit of broth. She hasn't woken up yet, but at least she seems to be stable now, which is why I'm talking for longer than the past three days right now. And I'm sorry about that, I just wanted to make sure that you knew I was alive and all. If you're even listening." Clarke put the receiver down for a second before picking it back up. 

"I'm just so happy to not be alone anymore. I hope that she'll pull through. She must be a nightblood if she's made it this far, so I guess that this is just a really messed up sort of field test of survivability." Clarke leaned against the wall of the pantry. 

"In other news, winter is here now. Well, it has been here since Praimfaya, but the storms, Bellamy. You wouldn't believe them until you saw them yourself, if you can't from space. They roll in just like the acid fog used to. And they just stay for days, dumping this radiation soaked snow everywhere and then I can't leave the house for days. Recently, there have been electrical storms as well. The lightning usually comes before the snow. It will usually stay in the clouds for awhile and then it will take over once the snow begins to fall. And the world goes black. I bet that the girl was caught in one of the storms and that's how she got to the island." The girl makes a soft noise in her sleep from the other room and Clarke quiets for a minute hoping that she wake up. 

"Bellamy I wish that you were here. You'd know how to handle a little girl. I may not have seen you with Octavia when she was younger, but you were always so good with the little ones from the 100 and- I just don't know what to do, Bellamy." Clarke looked around the meager stores that she had scrounged up from scavenging around the remains of the buildings on the island. "She's so small and I don't know how I'll be able to take care of her once she wakes up. I mean right now it's easy, I just focus on the medical aspects of taking care of her, treating the radiation, keeping her hydrated and fed and all that. But once she's awake how will I be able to teach her the things that she needs? Do I even remember how to speak Trigedasleng?" Clarke once again heard the girl stirring in her sleep. 

"I need to go, Bellamy. I need to check on her. I will talk to you again soon. I'll give you her name if you give me parenting tips?" Clarke waited for a moment hoping for him to respond to her bargain. Her shoulders fell as she was once again disappointed. "May we meet again."

Clarke put down the radio before venturing back into the other room. The girl had awoken and was staring at her, grasping her knees to her chest and visibly shaking. 

Clarke blinked before responding in Trigedasleng.  "Hi there, Natblida." The girl shirked away, and Clarke cursed at herself under her breath for messing it up. "I'm Clarke com Skaikru. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to help you. What's your name, little one?" 

The girl looked terrified, and half feral, shaking there on the couch. The two of them stood there in silence waiting for the other to break it until the girl finally spoke up. "Madi." Her voice was small and cracking, likely due to lack of use. Clarke smiled at her. 

"Okay, Madi. I know that you're probably really overwhelmed right now, but I need you to know that I won't hurt you." Clarke sized the girl up for another minute before adding. "Besides, we will fight better together."  The girl let her hands and legs slowly relax, the shaking finally having stopped. 

"Madi? I know you don't trust me yet, but I was the healer in my kru, before all of this, and I know that in order to get better, you are going to need to sleep. Do you think that you can sleep, little one?" Madi nodded slowly before laying down on the couch, not taking her eyes off of Clarke. Clarke walked over to her, slowly, smiling. She grabbed a woven blanket from a chair by the side of the couch and moved to lay it over the girl. Madi flinched at the movement before letting Clarke tuck her in. She would not take her eyes off of the older woman even as Clarke moved to sit down in the chair across from the couch. Clarke saw this and smiled, picking up a book from the coffee table and beginning to read. 

 _The Oddessy, Princess?_ He'd ask.

She hadn't imagined his voice in so long, it made her smile. She looked up from the epic after a little while, noticing the girl had fallen asleep. Clarke smiled before letting herself turn off the lights and going to her bed to sleep. 

 


	5. Three Hundred and Sixty-five

Hi Bellamy." Clarke had put Madi to bed hours before. Clarke still hadn't found another bed and since Madi had started to trust her, about a week after having met her, they had decided sharing was the smartest way to sleep, especially considering the lack of heat in the nuclear winter. But tonight, Clarke decided that it would be better for her to sleep outside. She was staring out at the barren landscape from the window. 

"Three hundred and sixty-five days since Praimfaya. It's been a year, Bell." She hiccuped.

  _You alright there, Princess?_

"Of course I'm fine, Bellamy. I just was celebrating being four years closer to seeing you again and I remember that I hear you more when I'm drunk so here I am, half a bottle of irradiated whiskey into my evening, wondering how you and the others are celebrating this occasion. Do you guys have the algae farm working yet? Can Murphy do anything with it to make it not taste like algae? I'd be sick of it by now."

_Of course you would be. We sure are._

"I wonder what they're doing in the bunker, to celebrate the creation of onekru. I hope that Octavia is handling it well. I miss her a lot." 

_I miss her too._

"I'm not mad at you for taking so long talking to Octavia. I know my mom is okay. I just... I know it. Just like I know that you're okay and Raven and Octavia and the others. You did so well raising her, Bellamy. I hope I can do at least half as good with Madi. That's all that I want." 

Clarke smiled thinking about the small girl. She had taken a few weeks to warm up to Clarke, but since then, the little girl had been bringing light into the dreary world Clarke had been living in, running around the rooms when she could not go outside, and filling what had been silence with laughter and stories of the times before. 

"I tell her about you all, you know. She asks me about Raven the most, actually. You're a close second, but this little girl is more interested in the youngest Zero-G Mechanic in years than the Rebel King. I think she just has a thing for the strong female role models." Clarke pressed her forehead against the glass, feeling the coolness of it against her face cutting the warmth of the alcohol. She pulls away after a moment, giggling.  _Princess? Are you still with us?_ She could imagine his confusion at hearing her giggle. She was pretty sure that was the first time she'd made that sound on Earth. She grabbed her sketch book off of the book shelf and sat down in the chair. She began thumbing through it. 

"I showed her you all too." Clarke said quietly.  "I've drawn everyone so many times and I guess they're finally getting use. So this way when you guys get back she'll know you all by name and you're just going to have to assume the little girl with the brown braids by my side is Madi. Remember that, Bellamy. I don't want her to think that I don't talk about her to you all." 

_I'll keep that in mind,_ _Clarke. But I mean you hardly talk about anything else anymore so it shouldn't be hard to assume._

Clarke hummed. "It's almost like you're here, Bellamy. With me. I can just close my eyes and feel you here, next to me." She closed her eyes and basked in the feeling for a few minutes, letting herself pretend. 

"I hope that you're alive, Bell. Because if you died before I told you, before I let you tell me-" Clarke stopped for a moment biting her lip. She hadn't said it yet. She hadn't acknowledged what she had known to be true since the day she woke up in the lab. "Bellamy? If you're out there, could you please respond? I just, I need to know, for sure. I need you to be alive. I need to tell you what I was trying to say in the lab on the last day. Was that what you were trying to tell me on the beach when we were with Roan? I don't want to say it, because when I say it I want to say it to your face, but know that I feel it, and I hope you do too. And when you come back I'll be ready. Not to pressure you or anything! For all I know you think I'm dead and you're fucking Echo or something like that. Please don't be fucking Echo though, I don't think I could take it. Raven, I would understand. I mean I stole her love so I guess it's only fair she steals mine." 

_Princess._

"You're right I'm just being paranoid." Clarke let her head loll back against the chair, letting her mind wander once more. She could imagine Bellamy wrapping his arms around her, and press his lips to her head. "Four more years, Bellamy. Till I can say it and finally hold you again." She closed her eyes. "I'd say may we meet again, but I know that we will, one way or another. We always do, Bell. Madi is making me stay hopeful. She looked so worried when I told her to go to bed without me tonight. I thought she was going to actually say something. Oh!" Clarke shot up, her eyes opening. "I'm gonna teach her English, Bell. I know your Trigedasleng is terrible so if you could respond soon then you can help me tutor her. You can help with the English and the History lessons and Raven, Monty, and I can tag team the sciences, and Emori and Echo can teach her Grounder history and more Trigedasleng and- and- I don't really know what Harper and Murphy would do, but I'm sure that they'd help where they could."

She could hear him laughing. She smiled, his laugh, as rare as it had become, was still one of her favorite sounds on all of Earth.  _I'm sure that we would, Princess. You should get to bed, love._

"You're right Bellamy. I should sleep. Happy one year in space."

_Thank you, Clarke. May we meet again._

"We will, Bellamy. We will" Clarke let herself begin to drift off. She could have sworn that she static spiked for a moment, but she attributed it to nothing more than a combination of the alcohol and exhaustion, giving herself over to sleep. 

\--------------------


	6. Five Hundred and Eighty-One

Five Hundred and Eighty-One

Clarke closed the external door behind her as she returned to base. Madi peaked out from her room before running over to her and tackling her in a hug. 

"Clarke you were gone for so long! I thought something had happened!" 

Clarke embraced the girl, running her hand along the back of her head. Madi's english was improving, but she still would occasionally speak in a strange hybrid between it and her native trigedasleng. 

"I know, my Nightblida. I didn't mean to be two days, I'm sorry." 

Clarke held the girl, trying not to let the worry show on her face. The island had been picked clean by the others prior to Priamfaya. The fact that she could forage what she did was, in her mind, amazing. However, their luck appeared to be running out as she had picked through nearly everything on Becca's island and even with careful rationing, their current supplies would only last another few weeks at most. 

Clarke eventually pulled away from the girl. "Madi we have a lot to catch up on in your lessons, why don't you go and I will follow you in a minute to come help." 

Madi groaned loudly in protest. Clarke took one look at the child trying to look tough before she burst into laughter. Madi frowned harder. 

"Clarke! I don't want to do lessons. I've been reading like you asked when you were away and I want to do something else!" The girl whined, stomping her foot on the ground. 

Clarke thought for a moment. "Alright, how about this: you go and get your lessons book, and I will call Bellamy. Then, once we get a little work done, I'll tell you a story." 

Madi paused. "Can I pick the story?"

Clarke nodded. Madi beamed and mumbled something affirmative in Trigedasleng before sprinting back to the bedroom. Clarke smiled at the girl before pulling out her radio, which was starting to look worse for the wear, after a few rough falls over the past ten scouting trips. 

She picks up the receiver. 

"Hi Bellamy. It's been 581 days since Priamfaya. Almost two whole years since I last saw your face." A breath. "I'm sorry I missed you over the past few days. I was out trying to find food and time got away from me. 

"Bellamy I'm not sure what we're going to do. I went the furthest from camp I have ever gone, I walked on the beach all the way to the docks and there was still no food. Even though, as I've been telling you for the past few months, we're finally on the other side of the nuclear winter and Madi and I can go outside with minimal damage, I still don't see us being able to grow food for another few months, not to mention, I don't even know where the world will come back first. 

"All of the signs are pointing towards us having to leave the island, which is not all bad I just- I just don't know if I can really stand to leave the last place I saw you alive."

Clarke sat down in the chair, pulling her knees to her chest. 

"I can't help but feeling like this island is what was keeping me alive this long, and the memories of everyone here. Without that, I don't really know how to proceed." She paused. "Well that's not completely true. The other day I went back to the lab, remember? While I was there I was able to use some of the equipment to calculate which regions would be least deadly. So far, there looks like there will be a pocket about 20 miles north of where the bunker was, so about 50 miles north of where Madi and I are. I've decided that, starting tomorrow, the two of us are gonna have to get ready to go. I found a boat the other day when I was scavenging in the lighthouse. I think it should be enough for the two of us and a few things to get across the lake, but I'll let you know.

"We'll probably get to go by the bunker and see the damage of Polis on our way, maybe stop by Arcadia and the Dropship, if they're still there. Who knows after all this time. Certainly not me.

"How is everyone up there, Bell? Are you all handling yourselves well?"

Clarke paused for a reply for the first time this call. She forgot when she stopped waiting to begin with. He doesn't respond. 

"Figured you'd be quiet today. Well, if you decide to speak up, I'll be here listening. I have to go teach Madi about history, so I guess I'll let you go."

Clarke waited again for a short second, letting herself hope for a response before quickly adding, "May we meet again," and putting down the receiver. 

By the time Madi is ready for her story, she is already exhausted and in bed, thus she asks for her favorite. Clarke sits back and recounts the tail of how the Rebel King and his Princess fell from the sky hating each other only to come together to save their people. By the time Clarke gets to the dragon in the mountain, Madi is already asleep, and doesn't hear Clarke whisper "together" or the gentle sobs which came from the older girl, before she finally was over taken by sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry that this took as long as it did. Some life things happened and then I needed to get settled back in school. Updates should be slightly more regular now. Also please forgive any grammar mistakes, this chapter's the child of my insomnia.


End file.
